Will Clegg have the bottle

Rolfe said:
"Confidence and supply" can produce reasonably stable minority governments. I wouldn't bet too hard on a re-run within the year if such an agreement was reached.

Rolfe.
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Yes, and I'm not actually going to risk any hard-earned cash. :)
My reasoning is that if the economic recovery turns out to be stable over the next year and the cuts have not been too severe then Cameron may well go to the country on the basis of "We are the only party that can deliver economic and political stability". And, as I think you mentioned earlier "Events, dear boy .." are almost bound to happen to upset the applecart.
 
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Lothian said:
Can't help but feeling that in another election the Labour party would do better as they will be led by someone who is more popular than Gordon Brown (pick any 1 from 257). However they would not do well enough to get a majority and we would have another balanced/hung parliament.
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Last of the Fraggles said:
I think you would see a swing from Lib Dem to Lab/Con but not sure it would have an effect on the overall balance of seats between the two.

I wouldn't even bother voting. Finished with FPTP elections and won't vote again unless its changed or I move to a marginal seat.
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The missing element is Cameron's performance as PM versus the Labour leader (D. Miliband, probably) I really have no idea how that will play out.
 
Couple of interesting comments on Nick Clegg's blog, as linked above.

GWS said:
Their (the Tories') policy of English votes on English Laws will be even more attractive now, and I wonder if they will now claim they have a 'mandate' to introduced English Votes on English Laws and thus be able to exclusively govern on 'domestic' English issues? Given devolution and the higher salience of discussiosn about political legitimacy, I am surprised the Tories have not deployed this argument sooner as it is very difficult for the other parties to argue against.
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John Wood said:
At the next election the tories would trumpet how the largest party was not able to govern and how the english had for several years to pay millions to 'foreign' political parties to keep labour in power.

The result would be:

a) Tory landslide in England and
b) Tories would slough off scotland and leave them to their own devices.
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John Wood is talking about what would happen in the event of an anti-Tory alliance gaining power.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Couple of interesting comments on Nick Clegg's blog, as linked above.

John Wood is talking about what would happen in the event of an anti-Tory alliance gaining power.

Rolfe.
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I don't think Scottish politicians should be voting on England-only legislation however the reality is that such a thing hardly exists if at all in Westminister. They would need to re-do the funding formula or separate funding issues from implementation issues. Doable I guess.

I would imagine there are also Westminister issues that primarily affect Scotland but are seen as UK issues because they are non-devolved issues.

The way devolution has been done is a bit of a halfway house mess. I don't think the Scottish MPs should be punished for that.
 
Rolfe said:
Cue the dead duck.

[qimg]http://www.b5-dark-mirror.demon.co.uk/duck1.jpg[/qimg]

This is my car after returning from the count on Friday morning. I'd unknowingly driven from about Lockerbie with a mallard embedded in the front grille.

Rolfe.
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I'm pretty sure there's some kind of metaphor for UK politics here.

Last of the Fraggles said:
I don't think Scottish politicians should be voting on England-only legislation however the reality is that such a thing hardly exists if at all in Westminister.
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There are actually some pretty major issues that are handled differently between Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Education and healthcare being obvious examples.
 
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Cuddles said:
There are actually some pretty major issues that are handled differently between Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Education and healthcare being obvious examples.
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But since the funding for Scotland is linked to rest-of-UK funding levels its hard to say they are English-only matters. if they are pre-dominantly English then well more fools the people who put forward the Bill and didn't separate the English and UK elements sufficiently! Tough luck.

If people put forward issues that genuinely have no impact whatsoever on Scotland then I'm happy enough for Scottish MPs to abstain. I just can't think of any off the top of my head.
 
I'm not that much of an anorak, but I suspect you'd be able to find details of which bills the SNP members abstained on in the last parliament because they were of no relevance to Scotland. This happened often enough for Labour to accuse the SNP MPs of having a poor voting record. And I know Angus Robertson looked closely at all the legislation to see if there were implications for Scotland hidden in the small print.

Rolfe.
 
Brown has stood down..is this a sign that they are trying to do a deal with Clegg or a sign that they have given up on the idea of government entirely for now?
 
BBC page seems to think it's a sign they are trying to do a deal with Clegg. "Formal talks are to open between Labour and the Liberal Democrats". They're not saying Clegg has given up talking to Cameron though.

Do we need a new thread?

Rolfe.
 
Last of the Fraggles said:
a sign that they are trying to do a deal with Clegg
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This, no question. The one rock-solid point Clegg made during the debates was that "I will not work with Gordon Brown". Brown goes - they can start discussions on coalition and kick the tories into touch. And about time too.

Rolfe said:
They're not saying Clegg has given up talking to Cameron though.
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That's true. Although it is what Labour would like to imply ;) Edit: And actually I think the Lib-Dems are probably closer to Labour than the Tories, politically speaking, and they'd find it a more fruitful menage.
 
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richardm said:
This, no question. The one rock-solid point Clegg made during the debates was that "I will not work with Gordon Brown". Brown goes - they can start discussions on coalition and kick the tories into touch. And about time too.

That's true. Although it is what Labour would like to imply ;) Edit: And actually I think the Lib-Dems are probably closer to Labour than the Tories, politically speaking, and they'd find it a more fruitful menage.
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Would be a good sign for me. Apparently the topic of discussion today in the Lib/Con meetings were political reform. Sounds like Cameron has refused to play ball opening up an opportunity for Lab/Lib to push through a PR agenda.

Feel a bit sorry for Brown in some respects can't see any replacement being significantly better other than not being Brown. Hopefully the coalition lasts long enough to get political reform and no longer.
 
I think an anti-Tory alliance is doomed from the outset and will cause enormous anger among Conservative voters, who were after all the majority.

:popcorn1

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
I think an anti-Tory alliance is doomed from the outset and will cause enormous anger among Conservative voters, who were after all the majority.

:popcorn1

Rolfe.
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Well.... they weren't. That's what started the whole problem! :)

Don't think the Conservatives can complain too much they were given an opportunity and put retaining a rubbish FPTP electoral system ahead of forming a government.
 
Rolfe said:
will cause enormous anger among Conservative voters, who were after all the majority.
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Oh dear.
What a pity.
Never mind.



It's fair enough since conservative voters tend to cause enormous anger in me.
 
Last of the Fraggles said:
Well.... they weren't. That's what started the whole problem! :)

Don't think the Conservatives can complain too much they were given an opportunity and put retaining a rubbish FPTP electoral system ahead of forming a government.
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If you like. They've still got more legitimacy than any of the other parties, with that outcome. I'm just waiting to see what happens.

:popcorn1

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
If you like. They've still got more legitimacy than any of the other parties, with that outcome. I'm just waiting to see what happens.

:popcorn1

Rolfe.
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By that reckoning the BNP have more legitimacy than the SNP.

Fact is, the Tories failed to get a majority in seats or votes, so if they can't form a government, then screw them.

A Lib/Lab coalition, assuming that all the voters agree with it, will have a considerably higher number of voters behind it.
 
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